Today was the cider pressing event hosted by the Essential Stuff Project. It’s something Jeff & I have been looking forward to for a while and we were not disappointed.
We left home with about 150 pounds of apples from our tree and came home with 8 gallons of cider. We left some cider behind for samples for the public and for others to take home. It was a fun morning. Good conversation was had while everyone did a share of the work, taking turns at the different stations.
The apples were washed and then fed through a grinder, that was run by an old stair climbing machine. The grinder and stair machine were all fashioned from scrap metal and dumpster finds – the guy who built it is obviously quite handy.
After being ground, the pulp was run through the cider press.
The cider ran through the press quite quickly. It was then bottled and ready to be taken home.
It was a fun and productive morning. The weather was perfect for early October and everyone who showed up worked hard, though I don’t think it felt much like work, and took home their spoils quite happily. Honestly, I can’t think of a better way to build community. I know we’ll be grateful for this sweet cider, warmed up all winter long.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
That sounds like time very well spent. I so look forward to having an apple tree and making cider.
I love the stair climber machine attached to the grinder. Very innovative!
Isn’t it amazing that the person even thought it might work to hook the stair climber to the grinder? How wonderful that it worked so well. Hope you enjoy your bounty and each time you drink the cider you spend a moment or two thinking about how nice this day was.
What a wonderful and productive way to spend the day! It looked more like fun than work….Ginny
Nothing like fresh apple cider! We’re buying it at $9/gallon (yipes!) at our farmers market.
Yum! My cousin still makes cider with my grandfather’s press…it looks a lot like that one. It’s soooo yummy and, of course, we get a gallon or 2!
My father built us a press similar to the one you have pictured for our anniversary. We are excited to use it, but need to read more first. How do you store your cider? Does it have to be refrigerated?
We are storing most of it in the freezer for long-term storage. We keep a bit in the fridge for drinking. I would think you’d want to keep it refrigerated. This kind of pressed cider isn’t recommended for canning, so freezing it is for us.
I think this must be another one of those American vs. British English situations. I’ve been reading recently on a few blogs about people giving cider to kids or their memories of it as kids and was somewhat taken aback. And then somebody mentioned that it was non-alcoholic, which made more sense. Except that then I couldn’t figure out what people were talking about. So it’s nice to read the description you wrote. To me, that’s apple juice. Cider is an alcoholic sparkling apple drink, the start of the process would be more or less the same but then yeast is added to the apple juice and it’s fermented for a long while.
At the moment I have three big bags of apples and a borrowed steam juicer so I’m getting lots of juice, some of which I’ll use to make apple jelly at the weekend. Hmmm. I do love strawberries but it’s apples that are my almost year-round fruit.
{ 1 trackback }